Well I have a friend whos been looking to get rid of his 100 gallon for a while now. Hes asking a bit to much if you ask me. But a friend in need... Plus a 100 gallon would be sweet.

I know he had a rat live in there for a while so can anyone recommend a good cleaning solution? Some bleach and water?

He says hes not sure if the canister filter works. I believe its a fluval.. the orange one? It comes with the cheapo lights that come with any aquarium kit. Do the fixtures take bulbs of a much higher wattage or will I be replacing the fixtures? I'm talking him down on the price if I'm going to be replacing the canister and the lights too. He wants $500 for a 100 gallon and stand with a canister filter (maybe broken) and two light fixtures, the hoods for the tank, and a python. I think he said hes got aeration and two big heaters for the tank. I'm sure he has other little goodies too, I just want to make sure I'm not paying to much. I know the tanks in great condition I just don't know about the things coming with it. I don't think I'll have to worry about this stuff for a while though, I hope to have it by Christmas but I haven't even started my new job yet so its hard to say how long saving 500 bucks will take me. I'm just super excited :-D:-D:-D

Also stocking suggestions?? I have lots of little fish so I'm going to go for bigger ones this time. Maybe that motoro stingray I always wanted? Thanks for reading :-D ohhh I just thought Oscars??

onefish2fish

10-28-2008 08:46 AM

honestly i think you could find a better deal on craigslist.com
what are the dementions of the tank? because usually its either 75gals or 125gals as more of the "Standard sizes"

why not go saltwater :)

Little-Fizz

10-28-2008 09:09 AM

True, thank you. I'll check out some local ads sites (I planned on doing that anyways) But I really just want to get the canister filter off him and see if it works, then if not how much it'll cost to fix it. I'm not sure of the dimensions, I think its like 4 foot long by 2 feet wide... Or was that tall? Hahaha alright I have no idea.

Saltwater? I never thought about that... My mother would LOVE it. She always wanted a big reef tank.. And I wasn't planning on telling her about the 100 gallon until it just appeared at our door step. Lol I really don't have the room for a 100 gallon but I don't really care... I'll just take the extra bed outta my room. Anyways, any good suggestions for sw fish? Maybe a good guide to basic care for anemones and live coral / rocks?

Tyyrlym

10-28-2008 10:51 AM

$500 isn't a horrible deal IF, big IF, its got all the goodies. If the filter is questionable I'd be looking for a $100 dollar discount immediately on the assumption its a paperweight. To figure out if its a decent deal look up the exact parts he's selling and what they'd cost you brand new. If you're paying 50% of new the deal is iffy, you could probably do better looking around some. If you're paying 33% of new you're getting a decent deal. Just always remember that the parts are used and therefore unknowns.

4'x2'x2' are the dimensions of a 125 gallon tank.

Bleach and water will be fine to clean it, just give the bleach two or three days to evaporate before you fill it with water. A 5 or 10% solution will do the trick. Just scrub scrub scrub and then rinse.

No, putting in different bulbs will change nothing, if its a 40watt ballast that's all you're getting out of it.

Freshwater, well I love big tanks and small fish. I'd be packing if full of things like tetras, corys, dwarf gourami's etc. I think it's still too small for a stingray but it'd be a good oscar tank.

Saltwater, well the sky's the limit really. That's a big enough tank that you can do pretty much whatever you want to. Personally I'm loving LPS corals and softies. A large frogspawn or hammer coral is a beautiful sight and a big bonus is that you can get clownfish to host them without having to get an anemone.

Little-Fizz

10-28-2008 12:45 PM

Thanks for the info! I'm pretty sure I'm going to talk him down to 400. I've tried explaining to him that its a used tank so he can't expect to get what he paid for it, lol he doesn't like to listen. How do I know the wattage of the fixture? Thats going to be a big of a problem then because now theres another 200 dollars I'm going to have to spend on just the lights... I'm actually going to make a post in the sw section now and see how much money I'm going to be spending if I do a reef tank. Thanks for the help guys!

Little-Fizz

10-28-2008 01:01 PM

Sorry a random thought that I forgot to post along with my last one. I believe the minimum tank size for those types of rays are 90 gallons. I'm sure they would appreciate a larger tank though.

Tyyrlym

10-28-2008 02:27 PM

Most fixtures have the wattage on a sticker on the backside. Unlike incandescents you can't just plug in a larger bulb and get more light out of it, you're limited by the ballast in the unit.

I'd really advise you to just get ready for it on the lights. Lighting a saltwater tank is not cheap. Lighting something like a 125 gallon tank is going to run you a lot more than $200. Unless its a FOWLR or MSOWLR that is.

The big thing to point out why used isn't as good as new is to point out things like scratches, cleaning you'll have to do, etc. Also point out that you're buying a lot of mechanical and electrical equipment of unknown quality. Would he pay full sticker price for a car that's used and you know nothing about how it's been used?

iamntbatman

10-28-2008 03:16 PM

Setting up a 125g reef would be a huge investment, whereas you could do a pretty cool FW tank for much cheaper. Like Tyyrlym said, the lighting is *very* expensive, especially for a tank that size. Metal halide lighting required for some of the stony corals would be even worse. Then, you'd also probably need to do things like build an overflow and a sump/refugium, buy a protein skimmer, buy live rock, buy a CUC, buy expensive SW fish and inverts, then buy coral. Even starting out with the everything this guy has for sale, you're still probably looking at thousands of dollars spent before you have a good looking reef. Just ask some of the SW people on here about how much they've spent on their tanks.

You could also spend a truckload of cash planting that thing and stocking it with a lot of small fish. Big fish are a lot cheaper of an initial investment, but they might end up costing you more in terms of feeding them. If I got my hands on that tank and cost *was* an issue, I'd do one of these two options:
1) A single big New World cichlid, like a Jaguar. These fish have *tons* of personality and are extremely cool pets. You could probably get away with a pleco and maybe even a school of something like silver dollars, although it's not a guarantee. You wouldn't be able to have live plants in a tank like that, but you could decorate with just sand, rocks, and lots of driftwood and have a great looking tank.
2) African cichlids - you'd probably want to get aragonite sand or crushed coral substrate, but then decoration would be as simple as setting up some big rock heaps and maybe some shell piles (if you decide to get shelldwellers). The initial stocking would be somewhat on the expensive side, but less so if you bought your fish as juveniles. You could do a really cool mbuna tank in 125g.

Either of these ideas would need heavy filtration, but neither would have live plants so costs could be kept pretty low. I'm not trying to discourage you from saltwater, but if you're on a budget keep in mind that pretty much any saltwater tank is going to be substantially more expensive than the ideas I listed.

Tyyrlym

10-28-2008 03:54 PM

A 48" x 24" x 20" tank is 100 gallons, so you could still be in that size.

Lol well that was crushing. I mean I knew it would cost a crazy amount but I was hoping not that crazy :lol: If I had a job that paid better then I would spend that much. I still might I guess just not for this tank. Maybe a nano cube in the near future? Are those even worth my time?

Thanks so much for the info guys. Batman, I thought about cichlids... but I don't know to much about them so yeah maybe I'll get some books or something.... Urgg now I don't know what to get lol maybe I'll just get a huge community?

I'm talking to my friend right now and he is telling me the tanks 5 feet long 2 1/2 feet wide and 2 feet tall... i just calculated that and its like 187 gallons... I've seen the tank and I'm pretty sure its not that big. So I think maybe my friend hasn't got a clue.